Hal Clement - Noise

Wanaka pointed out that since silicon could be processed so much more easily on worlds with better developed high-temperature technology, Aorangi would be better advised to trade for finished semiconductor equipment for which the captain could make arrangements. Wherepapa conceded the point.

Since personnel often visited between ships for a night or more at a time, the children listened in with increasing frequency, only partly to profit from Mike’s translations. What interested Eru was unclear to Hoani; the youngster was a city offical’s child and might reasonably be fascinated by anything at all, whether or not visibly connected with administration. ’Ao seemed to be most impressed with how useful it was to know things, though Mike tried to impress her with the existence of trivia. She was still young enough to have an extremely capacious memory, and found it hard to believe that this would ever fail her.

As a student himself, Mike considered the ability to think more important; facts could always be looked up. He began to feel a little worried about the responsibility he might have incurred; after all, he had been collecting facts, obviously and carefully, for this whole trip. Had that been a bad example? His language skills, essentially memory, had been of almost continuous use to ’Ao’s captain. Did Kainui’s schools teach people to think? Wanaka was a skilled sailor, which was a matter of knowing what to do at a given time to produce given results, with most appropriate actions necessarily reflexive; Keo had the same training and qualities. Of course, the captain’s trading skills represented something else—Mike couldn’t quite decide what, but it was something else. But ’Ao?

Well, what did she get points for? That was a comforting thought. Having skills, certainly—he remembered the points she had earned from setting up the division of the iron-fish. But there was judgment, too; she had lost some for risking her armor to infection.

Maybe he shouldn’t worry; she wasn’t his responsibility, except as any adult shared some responsibility for any child.

He was talking to her, still with this question in mind, just before she climbed to her station after the wake-up meal.

“You recognized that iron-fish just at the start of our trip,” he remarked. “Was that just because it wasn’t anything else you knew?” He had been confronted with that trick question, he remembered, during his own school days.

’Ao looked indignant. “Of course not. It might have been something I’d never seen before. It just looked like iron.”

“Aren’t there any other fish that look like iron?”

“Some. A little.”

“What would you have said if you couldn’t tell any differences?”

The child was beginning to show a why-are-adults-so-silly expression. “I wouldn’t have said anything until I was sure, unless the captain asked me. Then I’d have said I didn’t know, of course.”

“Suppose you’d been wrong, and missed something that should have told you it wasn’t iron?”

“I’d have lost some points, unless the captain missed it, too.”

“So if you’ve eliminated all the wrong answers, you have the right one?”

“Didn’t you go to school? Sorry, that was rude. Maybe it’s your school’s fault. They used to tell us a lot of stories with morals in them. Pretty often they were stories from the Old World, I expect just to make them interesting. I know what a wolf was, because they gave us the one about the boy who cried ‘wolf.’ They gave us that Sherlock Holmes one you’re trying on me, too—you know, the fellow who said that when you’ve eliminated all the impossibles, whatever was left must be right. He never said anything about making mistakes in eliminating. He didn’t say a word about the things you hadn’t thought of, either. Isn’t Wherepapa just wonderful; with the things he can think of to say why the captain’s wrong? I wouldn’t say that to her, of course; you won’t tell, will you?”

He felt relieved, a little.

Half an hour later, he felt slightly embarrassed, since captain and mate were both on deck at the time.

’Ao shrilled from her masthead, “City, two hands port.” Then just as loudly, “It’s Muamoko, Mike. I’m certain of it.”